A bright yellow wave of rubber duckies raced down the Yantic River on Saturday as onlookers cheered them on.

It was the Norwich Sunrise Rotary’s third annual Great Rotary Rubber Duck Race, and visitors celebrated the time-honored bathtub friend with the race, duck balloon animals, face-painting and a chicken barbecue.

An early downpour and drizzles no doubt hurt attendance, with nearly all of the top 10 finishers in the duck race not present to claim their prizes.

Norwich residents Jackie Falman, Lara Garber and Michelle Morency, and Garber’s 9-year-old son, Max, claimed second prize and $1,500 in cash. Lara Garber held up her camera to record video of Rotary leaders giving Falman the prize.

“No one’s going to believe this if they don’t see it,” she said.

Garber, who teaches with Morency and previously taught with Falman at Samuel Huntington School in Norwich, said she usually goes in on a few ducks through the school, but ended up purchasing a single duck with her son and coworkers that afternoon on a whim. The group came out to see Max honored for winning a duck coloring contest, they said, laughing at their good luck.

The race gives out $6,000 in cash prizes, including $3,000 to the first-place winner. Besides the prizes, proceeds go to Norwich Sunrise Rotary’s philanthropic causes, said Jay Campbell, the organization’s president.

Those causes include the St. Vincent de Paul Place food pantry and soup kitchen, tutoring programs at Norwich’s middle schools and a program that gives every Norwich third-grader a free dictionary.

“Every dime we raise goes right back to the community,” Campbell said.

As the race started with the dumping of 1,300 rubber duckies into the Yantic River at Fireman’s Field on Saturday, children cheered.

Isis Rojas, 8, of Norwich, another coloring contest winner, brought dad Orlando Rojas and his girlfriend, Alexis Watson, to the riverbank to cheer on the three ducks the family purchased. It was their first time attending the duck race, Isis said, and she was still contemplating what cheer she would use.

“Probably just ‘Go one, go two, go three,’ ” she said.

As the ducks cruised toward the finish line, 10-year-old AJ Lurette joked, “the yellow one’s winning!” and held up his rubber-duck balloon animal, complete with bubbles.

AJ and his mom, Shannon, of Norwich, said they’d entered ducks before, but never won. While he didn’t win Saturday, AJ said he still enjoys the event.

“I like watching the yellow stuff go by,” he said.

Shannon Lurette said she just enjoys the chance to spend the day with her son, even in the rain.